


Jumping to Conclusions

by Tarlan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Humor, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-05
Updated: 2008-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-21 11:01:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney insults one of his staff after she falls pregnant unexpectedly, and before she is shipped back to Earth, she decides to pay him back using a small Ancient device found in an abandoned laboratory in Atlantis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jumping to Conclusions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ **_trouble_fics MPREG** UH OH Challenge Prompt 4.  
>  **SPOILER FOR 501 - Search and Rescue**

"Perhaps if you'd kept your panties on and your legs crossed then I wouldn't be in the unenviable position where I need to subject myself to the talentless masses within the biochemistry field in search of your replacement. This is going to cost me hours of vital research time picking your successor, time that is vital for the safety of two whole galaxies..."

When Yvonne burst into tears, Dr. McKay looked upon her in absolute horror.

"Oh wonderful. Even my sister wasn't this hormonal."

"What? You didn't make her cry too?"

Yvonne hadn't seen Colonel Sheppard enter but the sarcasm in his voice, aimed at her verbal attacker, was enough to have her flinging herself into his arms for his protection and reassurance. She sobbed into his dark t-shirt, arms wrapping around him in a death grip as he patted her hair awkwardly.

"Well, perhaps if your grunts could manage to keep their dicks in their pants rather than up my staff, I wouldn't be in this predicament."

"Oh? And what predicament is that, Rodney?"

"She's pregnant! And worse, she won't even consider an abortion. She's useless to me now. I'll have to ship her back on the _Daedalus_ when it leaves tomorrow because who knows when we might see Captain Pugwash and his crew again."

"Pugwash?" Yvonne heard Sheppard murmur under his breath in confusion before Miko stepped in and pulled Yvonne from his arms.

"And in the meantime, I'm down one biochemist who, as chemists go, at least knew enough not to blow us all up."

Yvonne didn't hear any more of McKay's rant as the door closed behind her and Miko and, a few minutes later, she was sitting in the mess hall with a mug of hot chocolate and a slice of cake. Comfort food.

Miko sighed. "Dr. McKay can be a little abrasive when he is upset," Miko stated softly. "I am certain he did not mean to be rude."

Fortified by cake and chocolate, Yvonne took one more sniveling breath and breathed out slowly. She dabbed at her hot and swollen eyes, dreading to think what she looked like with her cheeks all blotchy and tear-tracks down her face.

"Oh, he meant every single word. He's an arrogant, rude, and insensitive pig."

Miko didn't even attempt to argue with her, just looked all the more dismayed and sorrowful. Other friends came to join them, each of them just as indignant at her treatment from McKay that overshadowed any joy at her pregnancy.

"Shame he cannot be placed on the flip side of this equation," Helga stated, shaking her head in annoyance. "What?"

Yvonne knew she was gaping but Helga's words had jump-started a memory of a device found in an abandoned laboratory almost a year ago that Venya in Medical had insisted was a gender adaption device so Ancient males could also bear children. As it had no immediate medical usage, Dr. Beckett had placed it on top of the pile of devices to study later but it was long forgotten by all except for Venya. She had been curious about it and had planned to spend her free time researching it. At the time they had laughed together at the possibility of male pregnancy.

Another thought occurred to her that only Venya would notice if it went missing and turned up in Dr. McKay's vicinity, conveniently initialized.

Fueled by her self-righteous anger and a plan, Yvonne excused herself, saying she had to go and pack as McKay wanted her on the _Daedalus_ for tomorrow's trip back to Earth. She accepted the hugs and the mixed commiserations and congratulations from her friends before walking away with a purposeful stride. If she timed this right then McKay would find the initialized device on his desk while he was working alongside the recently returned Dr. Kavanagh, and wouldn't that be poetic justice?

****

Rodney sighed in relief as the _Daedalus_ took off, watching from balcony outside the control room as the ship climbed gracefully through the atmosphere and disappeared. Atlantis had lost a number of good people this time around, with some going home in body bags. However, the majority had decided they could no longer cope with the stress of being so far from their loved ones and under constant threat of annihilation by both Michael and the Wraith, especially now the ZPM was too low in power to sustain the shield for any length of time in the event of another coordinated attack. Each new death panicked his scientists a little more and he could hardly blame them as they had not signed up for _death by having the life sucked out of you_.

He'd wasted several hours yesterday evening trying to convince a few of the slightly less stupid scientists to stay, and then had to send one of the better ones home because she had done a _Jeannie_ on him. He felt a twinge of guilt because he thought he'd gotten over his resentment concerning Jeannie's decision to become a stay-at-home mom rather than pursue an academic career. Sheppard had increased that feeling of guilt tenfold, making him regret taking his bad temper out on Dr. Ashington.

He just hoped any rumors of his less than stellar reaction to Ashington's pregnancy never got back to Teyla. He had no doubt that she could still bruise him severely with her bantos sticks, with one hand tied behind her back and her newborn baby in a papoose strapped behind her back.

He returned to his laboratory and rolled his eyes in dismay. Why couldn't Kavanagh be one of those who'd chosen to go back--again? He was like the proverbial bad penny that was forever showing up at the wrong time. Kavanagh was fussing around Rodney's work bench, poking at papers and tilting his head to get a look at the screen of Rodney's laptop that was currently running a simulation.

"Touch one more thing, Kavanagh, and I will personally assign you to the slimiest depths of the city to clean alien algae from the walls."

Kavanagh jumped about a foot in the air before regaining both his composure and his sneer.

"Perhaps if you'd bothered to mention that you were sending Dr. Ashington home today then I wouldn't be waiting here for you to provide me with a temporary replacement. We were in the middle of some ground-breaking research into biomechanical systems."

Rodney snarled at the reminder of how difficult it would be to replace the biochemist at such short notice. For all his numerous faults, Kavanagh was a reasonably good with biomechanics and had been working with Ashington to discover the composition of the material used by the Ancients to build the city around them. Kavanagh backed away, mouth twitching in annoyance but he seemed to have received the message for now, and when the door slid shut behind him, Rodney sighed and added Kavanagh's project to his mental list of problems to resolve once he had a few more cups of coffee in his system.

He turned to his laptop and, within moments, he was deeply involved with the data streaming down the screen. Blindly, he reached for his coffee, not noticing how easily it slipped into his grasp and took a gulp, only to blink in confusion because it was just the right side of hot rather than stone cold as usual. He looked around and his heart skipped a beat in shock when he saw John with one hip perched on his lab bench only a few feet away, close enough to touch. He was turning some weird device over in his hands, studying it intently. Pale blue light glowed from within and Rodney snatched it from John's grasp.

"What part of don't touch don't you understand, Colonel? Or is having a super-gene and intelligence mutually exclusive for you?"

Rodney frowned at the warm device in his hands as the color intensified. "OW!" He dropped it to the bench as a sharp pain flashed through him, centered around his stomach. It was gone instantly, leaving him feeling slightly queasy.

"Rodney?"

He flicked a hand in annoyance despite feeling warmed by the concern in John's voice and then turned his glare to the coffee that he'd gulped down moments before, positive it must have been responsible. A glance towards his laptop confirmed his other thought, that he'd been working for five hours straight and if he didn't hurry then he'd miss lunch. From the smirk on John's face and his total lack of surprise as he followed close on Rodney's heels as Rodney raced to the mess hall, John must have realized this too.

Rodney slid his full tray onto the table and glared as John sat opposite.

"Of course, you could have made yourself useful and brought me something to eat in the lab."

John leaned back, a smug grin plastered on his face. "And where would be the fun in that, McKay? Only other time I see you move that fast is when were running for our lives--and that's not so much fun."

When he returned to the laboratory an hour later, Rodney never noticed that the device had gone.

****

 **Three months later:**

John stared across the table, bemused by the way Rodney had become obsessed with the Karba tree sticks Lorne's team had brought back in trade from Lauthur a week earlier.

Every time he'd seen Rodney over this past week, he was chewing on a Karba twig. He'd mentioned it to Keller, worried that the twigs might have some addictive property but she'd pointed out that they'd been fully tested and were more than harmless. They might actually be healthy, providing a supplement of certain vitamins that could easily be missing from the basic diet on Atlantis for someone with a citrus allergy, and that seemed wrong to John on a whole new level because Rodney was not one to eat healthily despite his whines about his various allergies and hypoglycemia. Until recently, John was more likely to find him biting into a PowerBar than chewing on a tasteless twig.

Of course it didn't help that it made John want to focus on those lips, imagining the taste and texture and wondering whether they would be just as soft wrapped around his cock. Then, when Rodney sucked hard on the twig, his cheeks hollowing, John almost melted from the heat flashing straight to his groin.

"What?" Rodney snapped around the twig.

John shrugged, forcing his mind back from lustful thoughts of Rodney giving him the blow-job of a lifetime.

If chewing on those Karba twigs was healthier than PowerBars then who was he to complain about Rodney's new habit, though it obviously hadn't stopped Rodney from indulging in his love of sweet things judging by his slowly expanding waistline. Since Torren's birth four months ago, the team had stepped down from taking any possibly dangerous or lengthy assignments off-world, and John wondered if sitting around the labs between these light missions was only exacerbating the situation. Maybe he should force Rodney to attend more regular defense and stamina sessions, and get him back into shape before they needed to run for their lives again.

"What?!" Rodney glared between him and Ronon, who was also staring hard.

"Getting fat, McKay," Ronon rumbled.

Rodney straightened in indignation. "I'll have you know that I've been restricting my intake on certain food groups." He looked a little miffed. "Though it hasn't made much difference."

"Then maybe you need to exercise," John pointed out.

"I haven't exactly needed to worry about any spear-carrying Neanderthals chasing me recently."

"Can be arranged." Ronon gave a toothy grin that had been known to made hardened marines tremble in their boots but Rodney merely narrowed his eyes, probably working out suitable retribution should Ronon made the attempt.

"Oh yes, as if threatening me with bodily harm is going to get me anywhere near the gym!" He exclaimed sarcastically, and John could see his point.

"Nobody's going to start chasing you around Atlantis with spears." He gave Ronon a hard look, receiving an unrepentant, one-shoulder shrug in response. "But maybe a few laps around the central spire occasionally wouldn't go amiss."

"Laps? As in more than one?" Rodney looked suitably horrified at the thought.

"We can start off slow."

When Rodney rolled his eyes, John smiled because that meant he had cornered him into at least trying. Keeping him coming back for more would be the really hard part.

****

 **Another three months:**

Jennifer drew in a deep breath as she picked up the diet sheet, preparing herself for a tirade of massive proportions from Rodney when she presented him with her recommendations. It didn't help that he was obviously in complete denial concerning his thickening middle and admittedly slow but steady weight gain. She'd tried monitoring his food intake surreptitiously, wanting to catch him with the high fat and sugar items but, obviously, he must have stashed the high calorie foods in his room or lab. He was eating healthily enough in the mess hall if in slightly larger portions than he truly needed, and was trying to stick to a simple exercise regime set up by Colonel Sheppard and Ronon. She'd seen him jogging with the Colonel several times and he hadn't looked too out of breath, all things considered.

Rodney was sitting on one of the infirmary beds following the usual post-mission check-up, picking at the edges of the small Band-Aid placed over the puncture wound from where she had drawn blood earlier. His slouch emphasized his slightly more rounded belly and padding around his waist but, other than that, he seemed well enough, glowing with health even. He was fitter too despite the extra weight though, if Jennifer was to be fair, the gain was more likely to be water retention rather than fat, though it seemed to be localized around his middle. Something about him was niggling at her though, something she was not seeing despite all the symptoms.

He took out another one of those Karba twigs and began to chew on it rather than pull out one of the ubiquitous PowerBar that Carson used to curse because of the sticky wrappers invariably left behind on the bed. Jennifer looked back down at the diet sheet. It simply wasn't adding up and when she lifted her eyes again, she found him staring straight at her, the twig frozen between his lips.

"Well?" He snapped impatiently.

She raised her eyebrows at the sudden mood swing, and that nagging sensation at the back of her mind suddenly took on greater urgency. What if it was an abdominal tumor brought on by the number of times he'd been exposed to one form of radiation or another?

"I want to do a full exam."

Rodney's jaw dropped in disbelief, the twig falling out. "You can't be serious!"

"Yes. Yes, I think I am." Jennifer turned to an equally surprised nurse. "Can you get me a pair of scrubs for Dr. McKay, please?"

Less than half an hour later, Jennifer had a partial answer as she watched the parasite within Rodney's abdomen kicking out appendages. Whatever it was, it was mimicking the shape of a human fetus so closely that it had even fooled the Ancient scanner into believing it was benign. What if it was a Wraith? They had no clear understanding of how the Wraith procreated naturally and as they had evolved from insects, there was precedence in the insect world of certain wasps laying an egg inside a host body which hatched and consumed its host as it grew.

A terrible thought gripped at her as she recalled sending home one of the female scientists after she became pregnant, but what if she'd been carrying another entity like this?

"Stop!" She commanded herself. Before she began jumping to any conclusions, she needed to gather more facts. An amniocentesis would collect a DNA sample that she could study in search of alien DNA and, hopefully, the tests would be more conclusive when compared to the strange results from the Ancient scanner.

Before she did anything more though, she needed to inform Rodney and Woolsey. Of the two, she knew which she was dreading the most and decided that it might be better to speak with Woolsey first and bring in Colonel Sheppard too.

Within ten minutes, she was in Woolsey's office.

"Perhaps if you just spit it out," Sheppard stated reassuringly.

"It's Dr. McKay. He's got an alien parasite inside him." She frowned. "At least I'm assuming it's alien because men don't usually..." She winced.

Sheppard was leaning forward now, body taut and his green-gold eyes focused on her with laser precision. "Don't usually what?"

"Have babies?"

Sheppard seemed to slump from the inside in disbelief.

Woolsey sat back in confusion. "Perhaps you'd better tell this from the top, doctor."

Swiftly, she recounted the nagging doubts concerning Rodney's health and eating habits, and how she'd decided to give in to those doubts and do a full medical examination.

"And the Ancient scanner insists it's a human fetus?" Woolsey added questioningly.

"I know!" She shook her head in similar disbelief because the Ancient technology had never failed them before.

Sheppard was the one to ask the important question, the one she couldn't truly answer. "What do you think it is?"

"I'd need a sample of its DNA to determine that."

"And that involves?" Woolsey asked.

"The equivalent to an amniocentesis. A long needle through the abdomen to collect a sample direct from the alien."

"And the risks?"

She licked her lips nervously as she looked into Sheppard's suddenly hard eyes. "It depends on what self-defense mechanisms are in place to protect the larva."

"So it could kill him," Sheppard stated softly.

"If it's a Wraith then it might kill him anyway."

Sheppard nodded in acceptance of her words. "Have you told him?"

"No. Not yet. I wanted to discuss it with you both before I..." She gave a nervous laugh but she could see Sheppard understood her concern.

"I think you'd better have some sedation at hand."

"That works for me too. I mean, I'd need to sedate him for the procedure anyway...to reduce the risks."

****

Rodney reacted to the news exactly as John predicted and as John watched Keller push aside the scrubs to reveal the firm curve of Rodney's abdomen, all those months of jokes about Rodney's increasing pot-belly and all that cajoling him to get into shape came back to haunt John. Suddenly it was no longer a laughing matter. It took all of his control not to hold onto Rodney's hand as Keller prepared an incredibly long needle and placed the tip against Rodney's taut skin.

Rodney did not have the same need to control, especially while mildly sedated, and he scrabbled weakly for a hand, almost sobbing in relief when John obliged and let the strong fingers clamp around his own. John saw Keller take a deep breath to steady her hand.

"Wait!"

All heads turned as one of the medical research doctors, Venya Dhandra, stepped into the curtained off area. Her hands were shaking but in them she was holding a small device that was vaguely familiar though John couldn't be certain where he had seen it before, but as she babbled on about gender adaption, Dr. Ashington, Kavanagh and male pregnancy, the memory resurfaced. John was uncertain if he should be relieved or horrified. A glance down into beautiful yet glazed blue eyes proved that Rodney was too confused to understand any of it except for the strong possibility that the Ancient scanner had been right all along. This parasite was benign in the sense that it was the intended result of using the device. It was as fully human as the scanner indicated rather than something alien mimicking a human fetus.

It was a baby, and if Dr. Dhandra's confusing account was correct then it was Kavanagh's baby.

"When I noticed it missing from my laboratory, I had a feeling Dr. Ashington must have taken it to exact her revenge on both Drs. McKay and Kavanagh for their harsh words, so I went to Dr. McKay's laboratory...and I found it on his work bench, switched off. I truly thought I had retrieved it before anyone else had the opportunity to touch it."

John felt sick inside but for all the wrong reasons, recalling the way Kavanagh had scurried away from Rodney's lab just as he was arriving, and the device had already been initialized, its faint blue glow beckoning to John. "So Kavanagh--"

"No. This is where Dr. Ashington was wrong in her assumptions. Dr. Kavanagh does not have the gene so..." She shrugged. "There were no other gene carriers in the laboratory as Dr. Kusanagi was working with Dr. Zelenka in the Telemetry laboratory that morning." She handed the device to Keller. "I believed only Dr. McKay had handled it and thought it had deactivated itself when it was not given two unique sets of DNA in close proximity."

"I touched it," John stated and swallowed hard. "It was sitting on Rodney's bench and I picked it up. He took it off me and..." John recalled the way Rodney had yelped and dropped the device onto the bench, suddenly feeling both sick and elated at the same time. He looked down at Rodney, eyes drifting to the rounded belly and whispered, "It's mine."

Rodney was looking dazed and confused; even a mild sedation had that tendency with him. "It's a baby?" John winced as Rodney's eyes widened, the shock shaking off the sedation. "You knocked me up!?" His face looked horrified. "And we didn't even get to have sex first!?" Rodney started to push up on his elbows, face going red with both exertion and anger. "I knew it! I knew you and that super-gene would get me into trouble one of these days!" He snarled.

Keller pushed down on Rodney's shoulders. "We still don't know for certain--"

"Oh yes we..." His eyes narrowed. "This is some sort of cosmic joke isn't it?!"

"I am so sorry, Dr. McKay!" Dr. Dhandra looked mortified as she backed away and then fled the infirmary.

"Oh God! I'm really am pregnant!"

Of course, it didn't take long for Rodney to use his pregnancy as a weapon to intimidate even the biggest, hardest marine into running down to the mess hall for Karba twigs and ice-cream in the middle of the Atlantean night. Though John wondered if Rodney realized that he didn't consider it any form of punishment accompanying Rodney to pre-natal exercise and breathing classes, especially as Teyla and Ronon joined them most days. The fact that Rodney had delivered Teyla's baby, seeing the birthing process firsthand, had Rodney's moods swinging like a pendulum between gloating and sheer horror.

John hadn't yet found the courage to ask exactly how that baby was going to come out when the time came. He'd heard the marines betting on a few options including one that was not so tastefully described as _ass-baby_. Of course, no one said that to his face, not when the rumor mill spread that he was the other DNA donor--the father.

In the end it was all rather anti-climactic, with Keller performing the equivalent of a C-section while Rodney bitched and moaned on the other side of the screen placed at chest level to prevent him seeing Keller and her team cutting him open and pulling out the fully-formed baby. One quick glance around the screen had John gulping back the urge to puke and pulling back, and then the world seemed to stand still around him as Keller placed the tiny, blanket-wrapped, squirming newborn into his arms. It was more intense than holding Teyla's newborn on his lap as he flew the dart to safety just from knowing this baby was his, and the shock of dark, messy hair left no doubt of that in John's mind.

John sank onto the edge of the bed next to Rodney and grinned as he carefully passed the baby into Rodney's trembling hands. "Looks like Torren has a new playmate."

The love and awe in Rodney's eyes overwhelmed him, and before he could lose the courage, John did something he'd wanted to do for years, since the moment he first met a brash, arrogant scientist in a bright orange fleece. He leaned over and kissed Rodney, gentle but deep, savoring the feel of those soft lips for a long time before drawing back.

Not wanting to leave any chance for misinterpretation, with Rodney believing this was just high emotions at play, he leaned in again, stopping only to let tiny hand wrap around his finger before whispering into Rodney's ear.

"Before you jump to any wrong conclusions, I've always loved you more than a friend loves another friend."

And then he kissed Rodney again.

END


End file.
